The start of a new semester  marks new classes and a new schedule of intramurals at the UREC Student Recreation Complex.
The UREC staff worked to prepare a full schedule of events for students this semester. The fall schedule will feature 12 different leagues and tournaments.
The typical sports — flag football, 3-on-3 basketball, indoor volleyball, tennis, racquetball and table tennis — will remain on the schedule with a few alterations.
UREC staff members get feedback from students on improvements and adjustments that can be made after every intramural season.
Matt Boyer, assistant director of leagues and tournaments, said one of the UREC’s goals for this semester was to give students more bang for their buck by extending the season.
“All sports will start in September, and the season will be longer,” Boyer said. “They’ll play four games in the season, and the fifth game will be the playoffs.”
Boyer also hopes to make intramurals appealing to more students. He feels the sports were clashing between serious competitors and those playing for fun.
“We’re drawing only the competitive athlete, and we don’t want that,” Boyer said. “We want everyone to come out and play whether they’re highly competitive or recreational.”
UREC hopes to solve this problem by altering the playoff format.
“The playoffs will be split into the competitive and the recreational,” Boyer said. “This way you’re playing teams in the playoffs of the same caliber and not seed No. 32 versus No. 1, where teams get demolished. We want to get people excited and out there and playing.”
Along with traditional intramurals, UREC returns dodgeball to the fall schedule. Intramural dodgeball came to LSU in the spring 2010 semester and proved to be a hit.
The newest event added this fall is futsal. Futsal is a 5-on-5 soccer game played indoors. Graduate Assistant of Leagues and Tournaments Matt Katz said futsal is basically a variation of standard indoor soccer.
“In indoor soccer, people bang the ball off the walls,” Katz said. “Futsal is indoor soccer, but without walls … played on the basketball court.”
The futsal ball is slightly different than a typical soccer ball.
“It’s a smaller, weighted ball so it doesn’t bounce quite as much,” Boyer said. “It’s more about skill instead of just kicking it as hard as you can. There’s more strategy and teamwork involved.”
UREC will also host a series of events for homecoming week Oct. 25 through Nov. 3.
These events include a punt, pass and kick contest, a kickball tournament, a dodgeball tournament and a sand volleyball tournament.
Overall, Boyer said the outlook for this semester is a bright one, and he believes the changes will be for the better.
“We have a good idea of what we want to do, and we think it will be exciting,” Boyer said. “And it’s different.”
Registration for all fall sports is currently underway and will continue into early September.
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Contact Mark Clements at [email protected]